Zalando cuts four out of five UK jobs

Online shoe store Zalando will be cutting more
than three quarters of jobs in its London office. No more than four or five
jobs will survive, the rest have a simple choice: move to Berlin, or quit.

British Zalando disappoints, German branch improves

Zalando wants to centralise its purchasing
facilities in Berlin and as a result, in London only a skeletal structure will remain. This
decision isn’t surprising: after a presence of two year the British sales
still amount to no more than ten million euro, only one percent of the total sales
volume of 1.15 billion.

For German employees the news is better: Zalando wants to improve working conditions in the distribution centres as soon
as possible. In its report ‘Gnadenlos
Billig’, German television station ZDF recently revealed abominable working conditions in the distribution centre in Berlin.

Dutch journalist Allard van Gent wrote a blog
about his experiences as a temp in the centre in Berlin, where he “worked at
seven euro an hour in a severely guarded prison with shoes and clothing.”
According to van Gent the foremen even showed sadistic tendencies.

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